Re “Abortion Foes See Validation for New Tactic” (front page, May 22):

Finally there is something for women on the opposite sides of the abortion question to agree on: that it is insulting and degrading to women, and a dangerous erosion of their rights, to assume that women cannot understand the consequences of their actions.

As a judge, I am extremely disheartened that our Supreme Court would adopt the patronizing and backward language in the Gonzales case, which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Admittedly with no reliable data to support it, the majority court speculated that doctors misinform their patients of the details of the procedure to spare their feelings, leading the women to later regret their choice and suffer “severe depression and loss of esteem.” This attitude harkens back to the old vision of women as helpless, delicate flowers who must be protected from themselves.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it succinctly in her dissent: “This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women’s place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.”

My friends may be more liberal than I on the abortion question, but we stand together on the question of whether women are capable of knowing their own minds.

Elizabeth Doyle
Hollidaysburg, Pa., May 22, 2007

•

To the Editor:

I had an abortion when I was 21 years old. I am now 48, and not once have I regretted my choice.

Every choice we make contributes to our present reality. Mine includes two beautiful girls, a wonderful husband and a life rich with art, community service and lots of joy.

I cannot imagine what path my life would have taken had I carried my first pregnancy to term. I do know that it would have led to somewhere very different.

Perhaps groups like the Justice Foundation, which has collected stories from women who see themselves as victims of abortion, should add stories from people like me. I am sure we are in the majority.

Jessica Sporn
Glen Ridge, N.J., May 22, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Your article about the strategy of anti-abortion activists reveals their new claim that by pushing for mandatory counseling about abortion’s alleged psychological and physical risks, they’re working in the interests of women.

The Supreme Court narrowly endorsed that claim when it upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, substituting political propaganda for medical science.

But meticulous research shows that there is no causal relationship between abortions and mental illnesses. Women’s mental health is jeopardized when laws require doctors to mislead them and is best served when women make their own decisions. That’s why the American Psychiatric Association stands in favor of women’s access to reproductive health care.

Anti-abortion activists have even made up a mental disease: “abortion trauma syndrome.” Recently I told Congress that the association recognizes no such disorder.

Doctors take an oath to work in the best interest of patients. Anti-choice activists merely claim that mantle as their tactic du jour.

Nada L. Stotland, M.D.
Chicago, May 22, 2007The writer is president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

•

To the Editor:

It is normal for people to feel depressed about life’s difficult events, including divorce, moving to a new city, job change, birth of a first child and, yes, abortion. Uncomfortable feelings are not the province solely of women who have had an abortion.

These feelings are an expected and healthy expression of a loss — just as a new puppy, child’s refrigerator drawing or marriage might elicit the normal emotions of joy.

Complex and varying emotions are part of being human. To be protected from them is to be robbed of the richness of an authentic life.

After writing a book on the emotional recovery from abortion, my co-author and I have found, from thousands of letters and e-mail messages over 10 years, that very few women feel serious distress after an abortion.

Most often they tell us that if they do feel regret, it is because they had to go through such a tough decision.

Candace De Puy
Los Angeles, May 22, 2007

•

To the Editor:

As a bioethicist who supports robust informed consent throughout the health care system, I am outraged by pro-life strategists who have hijacked and misused this important concept.

The point of informed consent is to offer the consumer the best medical facts about her condition, so that she can plug those facts into her value system and her life circumstances and make the best choice for her.

If there is good evidence that a significant number of women suffer emotional distress after abortion, that is important information women should know.

They should also be informed of the physical risks of carrying a pregnancy to term, the proportion of women who suffer postpartum depression and the emotional consequences of giving a baby up for adoption.

Dena S. Davis
Cleveland, May 23, 2007The writer is a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

Kennedy’s “rationale” for the decision on PBA is truly stunning. Haven’t heard such blatantly sexist claptrap in a long time. Doubt I ever heard a living man say something like this — only read it and it was from the Nineteenth Century. Maybe they can disenfranchise women of the right to vote — you know we might make a mistake and regret it.

I highlighted the above paragraph because I think here we really see how effectively anti-choice folks have contributed to the low self-esteem of the women seeking abortions. They are making thoughtful, difficult moral choices and yet none of them believe that they are justified in making these decisions. Instead, they have been bulldozed by the black/white absolutist rhetoric of the anti-choice movement–pronouncements, by the way, that are often made by people who have never been in their circumstances and thereby forced to make these hard decisions. These women need to be connected to a community that reinforces their moral agency, i.e. their right to make these difficult moral decisions and rely on themselves that they have made the right choice, regardless of the condemnation of others who foolishly believe they have the only truth.

It is curious that the arrest of Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American academic is completely out of the news.I was reading through the accounts of the Iranian & American diplomats meeting for the first time in 27 years, and only heard about Iran’s offer to train & equip the Iraqi army.

What happened? This admin. has been looking for a pretext to war with Iran for sometime. But this woman’s detention hasn’t drawn much attention.

And then after the Dems spelunk on the Iraq supplemental, after we hear that up to 200k US troops may end up in Iraq, we hear rumors of cutting troop size in half, and then other rumors of beginning withdrawal in September by Jeff Sessions.

this is a very depressing day in a very depressing month in a more depressing year in a terribly horrifying decade. Now I read Cindy:

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I haven’t had the loss she’s had, but I know the feeling of being a sucker for this system for far too long.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too…which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the “face” of the American anti-war movement. This is not my “Checkers” moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

They broke her, and so-called “liberals” helped.

It’s gonna take a full collapse and years of horror and hardship domestically, and that breaks my heart.

MitM — Cindy Sheehan posted one of the most honest, painful and heartfelt diaries ever. To be read and recommended.

Only the twitocracy couldn’t just let Cindy’s words stand on their own. They had to rush in and say, “Casey didn’t die in vain,” “We love you” — and on and on. Did they even read what she’d written? Are their comprehension skills that weak?

She should have been front-paged whenever she posted, but it’s not a liberal/left blog, it’s a party organ, no different than burly men leaning on shopowners to vote “properly”. Kos & Ko would have been at home helping Daley dig up “voters” for Kennedy back in the day.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s army received approval Monday to broaden its ground operations against Gaza Strip militants who have been barraging Israeli border towns with deadly rocket fire, but no large-scale incursion is in the works, military officials said.

The Israeli campaign – which has relied primarily on intensified airstrikes in the past two weeks – has forced Hamas leaders to lie low in recent days. On Monday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas stayed away from a weekly Cabinet meeting in Gaza City.

In the meantime, a lull in internal Palestinian strife appeared to be growing ever more brittle, with rival Hamas and Fatah gunmen clashing briefly, and putting up roadblocks around Gaza City that all but emptied the streets.

Under the new Israeli military orders, larger numbers of troops will be able to enter Gaza to carry out pinpoint raids, the military officials said. But no widespread campaign is expected at this time, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy.

“Only the twitocracy couldn’t just let Cindy’s words stand on their own. They had to rush in and say, “Casey didn’t die in vain,” “We love you” — and on and on. Did they even read what she’d written? Are their comprehension skills that weak?”

Marie

Some of them, yes. The rest are either lying to keep the gravy-train a’rollin’ or won’t let the blinders fall from their eyes.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people.

However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system.

George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Department of
Homeland Security has taken down a Web site it operated that included gay rights and anti-war organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists. [snip]

The site included the groups under a description of what it called “single-issue” terrorists. That group includes people who feel they are trying to create a better world, the Web site said. It said that in some communities, law enforcement officers consider certain single issue groups to be a threat.

“Single-issue extremists often focus on issues that are important to all of us. However, they have no problem crossing the line between legal protest and … illegal acts, to include even murder, to succeed in their goals,” it read.

Walker said the site had been up since spring 2004, and had gotten a relatively small number of hits until it recently became the subject of blogs, he said.

Birmingham attorney Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro Life Coalition, said he was concerned about any list that described people doing social justice work as terrorists.

“Our group’s main mission is educational. The thought that we would somehow be harboring terrorists escapes me,” he said.

Funny … “educational” … anyway, interesting that the editor obviously thought that an anti-woman activist would be more sympathetic.

though I acknowledge Cindy Sheehan’s initiation of this anti-war movement, I will not go so far as to compare her with MLK, Rosa Parks, etc. her “Good Riddance Attention Whore” exit smacks of self-pity, and I do not find it inspiring in the least. Why she chooses Memorial Day to flame out and remark upon her suffering and ostracization in some circles, seems odd and troubling, when she might have chosen to honor her son’s sacrifice in a more meaningful way.

Miss Devore — I have to diagree. She posted a thread all over a couple of days ago saying how she was no longer a democrat. Lead by Geekesque she was trashed and demeaned at Kos. So much so I nearly jumped in and posted to defend her and I dont even like her that much. I can only imagine how it went elsewhere. I find her actions completely understandable. The timing has more to do with that than the holiday I believe.

missdevore – I heard sadness and no self-pity. How best to honor Memorial Day and Casey with the truth? The hollowness of all this honoring the American is mind boggling to me. It’s cheap theatrics — because nobody is going to do a damn thing to save one single life today or tomorrow. And your critcism of when and what Cindy does is another example of what finally wore her out and forced her to see the truth.

I owe a lot to Marisa for steering me in the right direction in being able to see and appreciate Cindy Sheehan. She’s brave and kind.

well lots of people initiated the anti war movement. She simply had a brainstorm one night in TX with other anti war activists protesters and VFP (Greg Moses has written of the night, Colleen Rowley was there, one reason she went twice to Camp Casey, first when it was in the ditch) and went to Prairie Chapel Rd.

I don’t think anyone here has compared her to MLK nor Rosa Parks. Both of whom needed a movement to back them up. As it ws RP was the second try, the first woman deemed not the best “poster girl” as she was unmarried and pregnant.

It is all much more than the surface, imo.

As for how she deals with her son’s death, really, that is up to her.

Others took the 400K (which is retroactive – and now they want to extend it to grandparents) took foundation, grant, gift money and in some cases JOBS with the mil industrial complex. I am not blaming them, they made their choices in a nasty brutal nation.

The “other side” is making sure there is no tidal wave of the “loved ones” nor of the maimed and damaged to rise up. Otherwise you get to exhuast yourself fighting the system.
The hard right knows people just fucking wear out.

Tina Richards got so much respect from Obey. That vote last Thursday was the end for anyone hanging in the rafters hoping.

There is no institutional outlet. The “movement” groups are co-opted or frozen out. Even people who are natural allies have bought into the propaganda that there is a “proper” way to protest and be engaged.

Just how superhuman do you expect someone to be, MD? Out on a limb, w/ a bunch of people who have basically offered to be social pariahs … which is what you agree to do w/ you become a serious protester. No jobs, no credit, no student loans, no healthcare … nothing other than what your little fragile community can manage. The churches are bought out, which was where the support for MLK & Parks came from.

… and yet people like her and Vets for Peace and others put themselves out there. I don’t have the strength to do it. I quail at the price she and others have paid. Yet people criticize them for doing what everyone says they should do.

Really, just collapse … all of it. We are a truly fucked and corrupted people, and we don’t even appreciate righteous sacrifice when we see it. Lip service, yes, but only until it makes us uncomfortable.

I hope Ms. Sheehan finds a measure of peace in this vile, bloody, exploitive country.

Just catching up. Went to the elder grandherb’s dance recital on Sunday which was quite the cute production but it took me 2 bloody hours to get home via transit. Only took me about 35 minutes to get there. Damn Sunday schedule. Plus, it got very cold and started raining near the end of my wait so I crashed really early last nite – cold and exhausted.

One of the older groups of dancers danced to this tune, Voodoo by Godsmack, which I’d never heard before. I don’t keep up with all of these new-fangled groups but I did like that song. Plus, it started out with this, so I thought of the VAGs. 🙂

I’m not the one who’s so far awayWhen I feel the snake bite enter my veins
Never did I wanna be here again
And I don’t remember why I came

Candles raise my desire
Why I’m so far away
No more meaning to my life
No more reason to stay
Freezing feeling,
Breathe in, breathe in
I’m coming back again

Anyway, from Kevin’s post in the last thread:

If you’re really curious about birthdays, mine is 15 June (for the Canadians among us).

Visions of a crocheted sweater dancing in your head? 😉

I read Sheehan’s post and wrote about it today as well. I noticed that she used DU as an example of where the left had scorned her but she also mentioned in the comments that a kossack (it was more than one actually) told her to “shut the fuck up”. Damn flipping losers. What exactly are they doing to end this war besides supporting capitulating Democratic zombies?

And I will repeat what I said last week, the low low low red blood cell count in the vote in the senate was designed to cast off those who actually oppose the war. Unlike MoveOn and Win Without War who have been bought off… on a conitnuing basis.

The DP wants to go forward unfettered with the weepers (as I am sure they think of them, the damned liberal weepers). The Cindy Sheehans and the Tina Richards.

I caught an interview (Ring of Fire on AAR) iwth Howard on Satruday I think. After I read the transcript I double checked to make sure it was recorded after the vote. It was the 26th. He pushed Webb and Tester (called them anti-war) and he talked again of the desire to pull in evangelicals.

I think it was very calculated… even the no votes meant nothing as the link Madman posted showed. The WI group under Obey, Feingold was no, Kohl was yes. They all sold out as a group for the pork.

However they voted.

The louise Slaughter diaries, esp the smaller one at MyDd, were so revealing.

marisa – something’s been bugging me even though it’s not important. DH claimed to have been promoted to the dKos FP shortly after he arrived in mid-2002 (leaving the impression that he stood out from the crowd as Soto and Billmon had. I recall that Gilliard quickly became popular and while not appreciating could understand it). It just occured to me this morning that Kos had requested nominations for new guest bloggers (nothing like laying off the work to unpaid staff). You and I both declined when nominated. I don’t have any recollection of DH being some sort of favorite. And lots of those promoted have quickly flamed out over the years.

… and yet people like her and Vets for Peace and others put themselves out there. I don’t have the strength to do it. I quail at the price she and others have paid. Yet people criticize them for doing what everyone says they should do.

People are going to ctriticise them no matter what they do. I’m proud of Cindy Sheehan for calling them on their snot nosed bullshit and proud of her for refusing to allow herself to be used once she fully understood how unbearably corrupt and greedy much of the available pool of ‘allies’ actually is.
As to the churches, I believe that every single ‘pro (some) life Democrat in both houses of congress voted for that piece of crap supplemental.

he arrived late winter/spring of 2003. as a thread commenter. I never saw that he was some favorite either. But of course a Clark supporter and imo (by now) known to Kos. When Kos took time off and was on the campaign plane with Howard, at Bryant Park in NYC etc, both DH and DemFromCT seemed to be in charge. They all seemed to know “Petey” and seemed to Know “Ron K., Seattle” as well. All operatives.

IMO DHinMI elevated DavidNYC as well as Kid O. After they sucked up appropriately of course.

yeah such a democratic place.

When my name was nominated I could not get the email out fast enought to Kos that I was not interested. There were problems by spring summer of 2003, a lot of it coincided iwth the Al From opinion piece on Howard.

Well Gilliard in my recollection was irritable, but he did post some interesting stuff on the war.

I remember Billmon’s very first stint as weekend blogger. A piece on Korea. It fell a bit flat and iirc he was a little hurt.

Revisionist, I did look at Cindy’s previous comments at dk before this diary, as I wondered if there was something that had incited this, but did not stumble across the incidents with geekesque–someone who lately seems to be clubbing lots of people at dk, while also beating the stick with the dems drum.

yes, I can look at it as a matter of Cindy, sincerely, and without a lot of support, venturing in and getting overwhelmed. yes, I saw, how early on, every diary that she posted at dk, shot to the top of the list, and there was no end to praises for her.

It is not her fault that this society operates on a celebrity roller-coaster where one can be canonized by some and cannibalized by others. but I do think she has been experiencing those vicissitudes for awhile, and yes, she does need rest and recovery. I’m just saying I
think she exhibits a kind of personal collapse, where if people truly cared, would have counseled her out of the public eye for her own good.

Sorry Mitm, but the fact that the Rosa Parks protest and other civil rights events may have been planned does not take away from the centuries that black Americans have had to endure an amalgam of suffering and humiliation. The fact that the movement went forward not due to a collective response to any individual’s suffering, but rather their insistence on dignity. And yes, it’s meaningless to get into comparative suffering. Comparative dignity is another thing.

I do see parallels with people wondering why MSOC’s husband didn’t drag her away from the computer at times, and Cindy. Both people have suffered great psychological & emotional events in their lives, but neither should insist on the primacy of their voice, which is what has happened at times in both cases.

I do see parallels with people wondering why MSOC’s husband didn’t drag her away from the computer at times, and Cindy. Both people have suffered great psychological & emotional events in their lives, but neither should insist on the primacy of their voice, which is what has happened at times in both cases. — Miss Devore

oh please, let s be direct MD.

I made it clear, on several occasions, an ill woman who has paraded her self, her body, her life, her details, her hysteria and her history of suicide as well as other ‘s suicide/attempts and done so across several blogs should have a family that shuts her down for her own good.

marisa – thanks and the 2002 was a typo, knew it was 2003. (I was there the day when in a thread Kos asked Billmon to e-mail him and I knew instantly what Kos wanted.) So, DH was promoted before Kos asked for nominations? I remember RonK (yuck) but not DH maybe I never read his pieces and he didn’t go after me until much later (or maybe he was only one of several Clarkies I sparred with, none of them important enough for me to remember their “names.” Armando clearly remembers sparring with me in the summer of 2003, but I don’t)

MB — maybe I’m more tolerant of him than you are because he’s so much like many I knew long ago. When they were young and I was younger. A bit arrogant and patronizing, frequently very boring, but insufferable.

Once again, I’ve failed with a diary — twitocracy no shows. Mostly the good guys appeared. Jerome, rusty1776 and suicide blonde (don’t know who she is, only noted that she’s been recommending a lot of my comments since I started posting more last week.)

but we’ve both become acquainted to both persons thru blogs, no? (and each other, too) much has been said about how cindy was mistreated on dk. still, like MSOC, she returns to its “biggest game in town” aura.

missdevore – MSOC is an exhibitionist screaming love me. Sheehan just wanted to stop the killing — love for those being put in harm’s way not for her. For MSOC being abused is attention; for Sheehan is exhausting because she wasn’t out there for herself.

“Dr.” Laura Schlessinger’s son was recently in the news when horrific cartoon images from his Myspace page were revealed. This link is to some of the images on the now deleted site. They are more horrific than you can imagine, very, very upsetting.

The soldier must have had a nightmarish childhood, but the thought that men like these are in the military makes my blood run cold. There have been media reports that the myspace page may not have been Deryk Slessinger’s but was created by “the enemy.” I suppose that means he is still in the military.

“One of the older groups of dancers danced to this tune, Voodoo by Godsmack, which I’d never heard before. I don’t keep up with all of these new-fangled groups but I did like that song. Plus, it started out with this, so I thought of the VAGs.

I’m not the one who’s so far away
When I feel the snake bite enter my veins
Never did I wanna be here again
And I don’t remember why I came

Candles raise my desire
Why I’m so far away
No more meaning to my life
No more reason to stay
Freezing feeling,
Breathe in, breathe in
I’m coming back again”

Ahh, Voodoo! That brings back good memories. I first heard this in late 1999, and damn it, I couldn’t get it out of my head for months! I was never a big Godsmack fan, but I enjoyed hearing them play this one at the Patriot Center near DC on October 25, 2000. They were touring with Stone Temple Pilots (who I had been trying to see since 1994!) I saw the show about two hours after the interview that landed me the job that I still love.

The only thing that puzzled me about Sheehan was what she was doing shilling for the PDA. But you know what they say: The flaws you detest in others are usually the flaws you detest in yourself.

I would still like to write a reply to Maia, later. But Mcat’s link to Sheehan is in itself a good commentary on where anti-duopolists and non-voters are in this country. “Strangers in our own hometown,” to swipe a line from Percy Mayfield. Our options are immersion and confrontation, as Sheehan tried in good faith to do. Or withdrawal and a sort of voluntary dissidence or voluntary internal exile. Sheehan now knows the peril of the former. Once you have a rep, you will be packaged and sold for peanuts, generally by people that will bleed you dry with no true regard for what your agenda is. They use you. They do not respect you. Too many DP faithful either don’t know the difference, or else they know and don’t care. They want to feel important and in the thick of things, so the illusion of respect and accomplishment is enough for them.

I stand by my opinion that even if Ralph Nader is the biggest asshole U.S. politics can boast, his main crime to the Democratic faithful was that he resisted the packaging, as best he could. And they could not, cannot abide that. Oh, why didn’t he just talk to Gore and drop out bleat the little rabid lambs now just as they did seven years ago. It’s the wrong fucking question, you pathetic morons. The right question is why did Gore feel so entitled to the presidency on a silver platter that he treated Nader like a dog and then wondered why that didn’t work out so well ? Or why Gore’s entitlement and arrogance failed him in Florida, where it might well have done him some good. Just as Gore’s underlings can yet wonder why their abusive attitudes toward “the strangers in our own hometown,” does not bring us back to the party to be re-absorbed.

I wish Sheehan well. I am disappointed in her decision to retreat, but I don’t really blame her for it. Those are the choices we are handed again and again by our alleged allies: Abuse, disenfranchisement, retreat.

The move to open primaries failed again in OR today. A huge number of OR’s voters cannot currently vote in primaries because they are not affiliated with a political party, but Salem refuses to refer the issue to the voters. They are afraid. They hate those who will not be owned, bought and paid for. So they muzzle us.

Get sneered at for voting the wrong way or get sneered at for not voting. That is our function.

Fuck you, DP faithful. You are enemies of freedom, peace and self-determination. You are my enemies. I loathe your chickenshit power games, your repugnant, pandering leaders and your nasty, filthy tricks at the polls. You disgust me.

MD – she’s not a saint – merely a human doing the best she can with the hand dealt to her. Frustration and anger are normal and rational responses to set backs to a goal. So, is throwing back a parting shot when it can no longer be denied that being a punching bag is the limits of your usefulness to the cause. (I liked the title.)

I came home with good intentions
About 5 or 6 years ago
I came home with good intentions
About 5 or 6 years ago

But my home town won’t accept me
Just don’t feel welcome here no more

I built a house up on the hillside
You know I’m a good family man
Work hard at my business
Do the best I can
And I don’t mistreat nobody
You’re a liar to say I do
There are some here that like me
But so very, very few

I’m like a stranger, like a stranger in my own home town
Yeah, I’m like a stranger, like a stranger in my own home town
My so called friends stopped being friendly
Oh but you cant keep a good man down
No you can’t keep him down…

maybe because I am out here I heard of Cindy by fall of 2004, possibly sooner. I don’t remember the exact point. I did read a good piece that Stan Goff wrote of inauguration day in DC, Jan 20. An ugly bitter cold day. She was there, as was he. Most anti war people were stressed and depressed, which he made clear in his piece.

I did not hang in her diaries at Kos. And I don’t rmemeber when she began posting there. It was clear long ago that would end badly.

As for Cindy, I looked back through the diary at dkos after she’d been turfed out of the SOTU for wearing a protest t-shirt (can’t get that to load right now) and a few members criticized her in that “you’re embarassing us” (as if she was theirs) tone that kos used last week when he was scolding kossacks who’d decided to leave the Dem party. They should have been embarassed by their party instead for doing nothing to end the Iraq war.

Cindy still has a tremendous amount of grief to deal with. I imagine it’s overwhelming to lose a child, but to lose a child in this way… I hope she’ll find some peace (as I wrote at my place).

When I hear John Edwards speak I hear the voices of so many of the great statesmen of America. I hear the Kennedy brothers. I hear Martin Luther King, Jr. I hear some of the Greats from all walks of life who have struggled to make this world a better place for all and not just a chosen few. I also hear the unsung heroes who have marched in anti-war rallies, gay pride parades, women’s rights rallies and so many more. I have been involved in politics and civil rights since I was 8 years old and now 40 years later, I hear a voice of greatness than can lead us with a passion and sincerity that
has been missing for so many decades.

Read more… (16 comments, 16 new, 573 words in story)

Everything is in hand. Tut tut.

LOL I am so off the bus.
My local news is about to cover the Sheehan events of the day.

“Kos as “the online Liberal media” works for everyone. Except people who want change and a chance for a fair and equitable nation”

Marisacat,

This is the result of Beltway Conventional Wisdom being recycled over and over again. Kos supports the Democrats. Since the Conventional Wisdom is that the Democrats are dominated by the “extreme left”, and Kos’ name is not Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, or Zell Miller, he must be a liberal (and probably an extreme liberal at that).

That’s one of the downsides of living inside the Beltway. You hear so much of this crap. Besides the ever-increasing traffic and sprawl, it’s one of the reasons that I head out to the mountains in Shenandoah National Park about once per month.

[S]he might have chosen to honor her son’s sacrifice in a more meaningful way.

Her entire point would seem to be that her son’s life was thrown away in the most thoughtless, meaningless manner possible. If so, I salute her for having the courage to face the truth that all too few military families are willing to admit. If they did have that courage, this war might be brought to an end.

As for comparing her to Emsock . . . I’m not even going to give reasons why that’s an absurd thing to do. If you think there’s any equivalence there in the first place, you’re incapable of being reasoned with on the subject.

[Palast] “My conversation with the Drats of this world must end here. If you want to debate me, first read my book. If you want to criticize my methods, make sure your method includes some on-the-ground investigative work.”

Translation: Everyone on blogs: Fuck You.

Thanks for the respect.

The revolution will not be televised, but we’ll analyze it to death at The Next Hurrah.

my point wasn’t to take away from it, but to point out that there was a well-established and long-running movement to provide her backup and support, and an understanding in that movement that the ENTIRE political establishment was the enemy, and that pressure had to be built to force one side or the other to work with them to save themselves.

On this Memorial Day, thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But even as the flags wave to honor soldiers past, much of the current campaigns go on without notice, because while troop numbers are surging, the media that cover them are leaking away, worn out by the danger and expense of covering a war that refuses to end.

Many of the journalists who are in Iraq have been backed into fortified corners, rarely venturing out to see what soldiers confront. And the remaining journalists who are embedded with the troops in Iraq — the number dropped to 92 in May from 126 in April — are risking more and more for less and less.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.

If Joseph Heller were still around, he might appreciate the bureaucratic elegance of paragraph 11(a) of IAW Change 3, DoD Directive 5122.5:

“Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member’s prior written consent.”

Photographs and other images of casualties have always been a delicate matter and most media outlets have shown restraint, particularly with pictures of the dead. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the ground commander in Iraq whose own son was seriously wounded in action, is said by reporters to be particularly alert to the depictions of casualties.

Madman said what I wanted to say in about 1/50th of the time. He gets the macaroons this week.

Last year, a lot of posters on Indymedia were complaining that Sheehan was tainting The Cause because her son was part of the military. Too bad I hadn’t seen Sir No Sir at the time or I could have defended her better. She is not perfect, and she made a lot of people unhappy for a lot of reasons. But I have no doubt that her grief is sincere, and I hope she will be back on the scene at some point.

And she is right to call the DP an enemy. It is. I have resigned myself to not discussing this at all with people who can’t understand, after all we’ve seen and all the times we’ve been shafted. Or claim they can’t understand. I don’t care if they’re bloggers, my own Mom, my own spouse. I am sick of the pretenses and the lies people gulp down in order to remain perched precariously where they are. I cannot stomach this anymore. I won’t have it.

Apparently Sheehan will not, either. She deserves praise for that, at least.

Interesting article in the Globe & Mail, Burying the Unborn. The only such funeral I ever attended like that was when my niece miscarried at 5 months into her pregnancy – graveside service with the cremated remains.

I had a miscarriage when I was young but never would have thought to have a service – well, the fact that I hadn’t even known I was pregnant at the time made a difference too. There wasn’t any kind of attachment. Still, it is kind of a bizarre trend. I understand the need for grieving but, as the article points out, you need to define when there is a “life”, a “human being” to grieve for. Without any sort of law about that here, I suppose it’s whenever you choose to see it that way in this instance.

According to the Bardo Thodol, commonly referred to as The Tibetan Book of the Dead the reincarnated spirit enters the body at birth, not conception, iirc. I understand not everyone subscribes to such notions.

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is facing accusations that he told the Army its soldiers were not bound by the Human Rights Act when arresting, detaining and interrogating Iraqi prisoners.

Previously confidential emails, seen by The Independent, between London and British military head-quarters in Iraq soon after the start of the war suggest Lord Goldsmith’s advice was to adopt a “pragmatic” approach when handling prisoners and it was not necessary to follow the ” higher standards” of the protection of the Human Rights Act.

That, according to human rights lawyers, was tantamount to the Attorney General advising the military to ignore the Human Rights Act and to simply observe the Geneva Conventions. It was also contrary to advice given by the Army’s senior lawyer in Iraq, who urged higher standards to be met.

Today, rights groups and experts in international law will call on the Government to disclose Lord Goldsmith’s legal opinion, which they say could have helped create a culture of abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers.

wow, what the hell happened? I always miss the exciting stuff. DKos is offline. Were they crashed by a megaswarm from all the folks watching CNN?

Not having read any of the diaries discussed, I have only a sketchy idea of what’s going on, but I’m in Cindy Sheehan’s corner whatever she does. She’s an intelligent person and a very good writer who speaks the uncomfortable truths. More power to her.

I also give her credit for being so restrained in her public protests and statements. If I had lost my son in this war, I’d be doing something a whole lot more violent.

Hello, my name is Cindy Sheehan and my son Casey Sheehan was killed on April 04, 2004 in Sadr City , Baghdad , Iraq . He was killed when the Republicans still were in control of Congress. Naively, I set off on my tireless campaign calling on Congress to rescind George’s authority to wage his war of terror while asking him “for what noble cause” did Casey and thousands of other have to die. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress, I have lost my optimistic naiveté and have become cynically pessimistic as I see you all caving into “Mr. 28%”

There is absolutely no sane or defensible reason for you to hand Bloody King George more money to condemn more of our brave, tired, and damaged soldiers and the people of Iraq to more death and carnage. You think giving him more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.

Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said after George signed the new weak as a newborn baby funding authorization bill: “Now, I think the president’s policy will begin to unravel.” Begin to unravel? How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? How many more crimes will BushCo be allowed to commit while their poll numbers are crumbling before you all gain the political “courage” to hold them accountable. If Iraq hasn’t unraveled in Ms. Pelosi’s mind, what will it take? With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit) how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity…

She continues:

So, Democratic Congress, with the current daily death toll of 3.72 troops per day, you have condemned 473 more to these early graves. 473 more lives wasted for your political greed: Thousands of broken hearts because of your cowardice and avarice. How can you even go to sleep at night or look at yourselves in a mirror? How do you put behind you the screaming mothers on both sides of the conflict? How does the agony you have created escape you? It will never escape me…I can’t run far enough or hide well enough to get away from it.

By the end of September, we will be about 80 troops short of another bloody milestone: 4000, and MoveOn.org will hold nationwide candlelight vigils and you all will be busy passing legislation that will snuff the lights out of thousands more human beings.

Congratulations Congress, you have bought yourself a few more months of an illegal and immoral bloodbath. And you know you mean to continue it indefinitely so “other presidents” can solve the horrid problem BushCo forced our world into.

The anger at dkos following last week’s vote seems to have calmed down considerably with the masses slowly being driven to take it out on the Republicans and Bush again. The reality of the Democrats’ complicity is just too hard to face, I suppose.

Sheehan’s dkos diary was also mentioned in a Guardian article. I hate the fact that kos is making money off of these hits from people who want to read what she wrote. OTOH though, she delivered a righteous smackdown of the Dem party on a site that reveres it and can’t stand any criticism of the status quo.

I’ve just visited DK for the first time in a good long while. I am SO PLEASED to see DH’s (who will hopefully soon be returning to MI) latest efforts in humiliation and marginalization of intelligent and decent people with projection so obvious it makes me weep with laughter. I think June is going to be the month that many, many people discover just who Dana and friends really are and what he and they have been up to.

I hate the fact that kos is making money off of these hits from people who want to read what she wrote.

It’s a good day for that to happen and I’m sure Martin will attest to the fact that once you alienate and bully for a brief upsurge in hits the payback’s a bitch. It does not sound as if Sheehan, Palast or Sirota will be posting there much anymore.
Perhaps DemfromCT will write another post about the Bird Flu.

First and foremost, I’ve tried explaining to Kos’s sympathizers that it is literally the case that Kos has a massive superiority complex. Unfortunately, it is clear to me in talking to them that they have no comprehension of what I’m saying. I might as well be talking to creatures from Mars. In fact, I’d bet Martians would be more likely to discern that Kos’s primary viewpoint, that the kids on the playground are happy to surrender to the school bully, is directly related to the attitudes in our society that provide pesky conspiracies with the necessary asylum to take root and spread. In view of that, it is not surprising that his apple-polishers have learned their scripts well and the rhetoric comes gushing forth with little provocation.

If you disagree with my claim that Daily Kos’s disquisitions are a parody of original thought, then read no further. Daily Kos extricates itself from difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. Daily Kos’s long-term stratagems of infiltration and mass propaganda have been so successful that it can now endorse a complete system of leadership by mobocracy, and besides, it asserts that there is something intellectually provocative in the tired rehashing of vicious stereotypes.

I just read through DH’s recent comments. They were about Palast. Did he say anything about Sheehan?

Pretty funny that he’s so bent out of shape about Palast and his defenders that he spends all this time commenting online about it. Come now, Dana, is there nothing more pressing in your job working for Hodes in glamorous DC? When are you coming to northern NH? You must let me know so I can meet you in person.

having met cindy sheehan not long after casey died, at a small peace rally in davis, i have a hard time seeing her as anything other than a person not unlike myself, but who got caught personally in the gears of our cruel reality, and has tried to do something about it as best as she could.

i have no doubt that all sorts of people tried to help and steer her towards their agendas and causes, and suspect that she got spome ghostwriting help at times, but ultimately i find the whole discussion of her, both online and in the traditional media, to have utterly missed the rather simple and crushing point: that her son was dead, ad that she was trying to do waht she could to prevent the same from happening to other sons and daughters.

too much of the online churn forgets that these are human beings we’re dealing with.

The whole thing about Sheehan being “manipulated” reminds me strongly of the recent Supreme Court decision: women are so impressionable and infantile and must be protected. By men, of course, who are not nearly as lame.

The Democratic party and entities within it wanted to control her… imo. I never saw that she accepted that, at all.

I am sure they flipped their collective lids when she went to Venezuela, among other things.

The government killed her son. She worked her way thru the ensuing horror as best she could.

Early on, everyone wanted her to be this or that. The most frequent complaint, in one form or another, was that she was not good enough to be the ‘face of the anti war … well, you can’t call it a movement! Not good enough. What bullshit.

It was only ever going to be what it was.

Love how the blogs chew their cud and talk about how the hard right is collapsing.

svix – the only reason i mentioned it is that i noticed that her writing voice varied dramatically at times. granted, it is a far different thing to post a comment off the top of one’s head and to carefully compose a diary (e.g. armando), and i could very well be totally off base here. i’m not claiming any special info, just my own observations.

at any rate, i think the world of her, and have a great deal of respect for her doing what she did. i cannot imagine going through the loss of a child like that, and then having to put up with all the rediculous personal attacks, online and off. she is a very “real” person in a world of plastic celebrity.

marisa – the whole line about “the face of the antiwar movement/the left/blogs/etc.” is so utterly laughable. as if there can only ever be one face, that somehow stands in for everyone else just sitting back and watching and clapping from the sidelines, and excuses them for it.

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.